Putting Community at the Core of Innovation In Media

Slide 1: Putting Community at the Core of Innovation in New Media by Evgeny Morozov Director of New Media, Transitions Online July 25, 2007

Slide 2: Outline Wisdom of crowds  Social ways of being  Emergence of social media  How can communities help innovate?  Challenges for media organizations 

Slide 3: 1841 "Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one!" Charles Mackay, 1841

Slide 4: Nowadays... “Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few” (2004) “Wise crowds" need (1) diversity of opinion (2) independence of members from one another (3) decentralization (4) a good method for aggregating opinions

Slide 5: Paradox? As technology is getting smarter, human interaction is playing an increasingly important role

Slide 7: Group think or individuality? Arguably, we have never been more autonomous and independent than now BUT The realm of the social Web also makes us more aware of others = better filtering/production of ideas ?

Slide 17: Ambient Intimacy Ambient intimacy is about being able to keep in touch with people with a level of regularity and intimacy that you wouldn’t usually have access to, because time and space conspire to make it impossible. Flickr lets me see what friends are eating for lunch, how they’ve redecorated their bedroom, their latest haircut. Twitter tells me when they’re hungry, what technology is currently frustrating them, who they’re having drinks with tonight Lisa Reichelt/ http://www.disambiguity.com/ambient-intimacy/

Slide 18: All those new social dimensions change the group dynamics completely

Slide 19: Reflection is social

Slide 20: => Emergence of peer-to-peer economy

Slide 23: Individual still the primary figure But individual outputs are still more effective than  community outputs Community just adds value at different stages  (pre and post-production)

Slide 24: But connections matter!

Slide 29: Digital Natives won't see any distinction between old and new media

Slide 30: Old vs New

Slide 31: Old+New=Social Media

Slide 32: Nature of the community dynamics—nobody understands

Slide 33: Works in practice, but in theory?!

Slide 34: “Sharing” or “peer-to-peer” economy requires new metrics

Slide 35: Yet all media organizations would need to devise those metrics sooner or later; new media is a good place to look at

Slide 36: How communities can help innovate I. Community can help build new products II. Community can help change old products III. Community can help adjust strategy

Slide 37: Building New Products 1. Community designs, community decides 2. Community creates, you package 3. Give away code, communities emerge

Slide 38: 1. Community designs, community decides

Slide 39: Threadless

Slide 41: Open Source Footwear

Slide 42: Cambrian House

Slide 44: 2. Community creates, you package

Slide 45: News To Me

Slide 47: uReport

Slide 48: CNN/YouTube

Slide 49: ohmynews/other citjourn sites

Slide 51: 3. Give away code, communities emerge

Slide 52: Google API

Slide 53: Chicago Crime

Slide 54: Mappy Hour

Slide 55: WeFi

Slide 56: Tunisian Prison Map

Slide 57: Google Earth/Deforestation

Slide 58: Google Earth Outreach

Slide 59: After discovering WeFi...?

Slide 60: Communities Change the Product

Slide 63: Who are the lead users? “Lead users are users of a product that currently experience needs still unknown to the public and who also benefit greatly if they obtain a solution to these needs” “.... products are developed to meet the widest possible need; when individual users face problems that the majority of consumers do not, they have no choice but to develop their own modifications to existing products, or entirely new products, to solve their issues”

Slide 64: FeVote

Slide 70: Snakes on a Plane: didn't work

Slide 71: Radio Open Source

Slide 72: Rough Cuts

Slide 73: Rough Cuts

Slide 74: Rough Cuts cont

Slide 75: How communities can change strategies?

Slide 76: Prediction Markets

Slide 85: Digg: the number

Slide 86: Subvert and Profit

Slide 88: Bug Blog Comments

Slide 89: Some challenges for news organizations

Slide 90: 1. How to make community innovation granular? Making every comma count  Innovate by a click/idle capacity  Fact-checking/UGC—something to think about 

Slide 91: 2. How to build a perfect community with lively interaction? Periphery vs core  % of Wikipedia editors editing most of the  articles/same with Digg Forming a proactive core is crucial 

Slide 93: 2. How to identify/empower lead users? Karma systems  Virtual currencies  How to break users into demographic groups? 

Slide 95: The Right Demographics?

Slide 96: 3. How to mobilize a formed community/for what cause? Finding an anchor activity  TechDirt Insight  Economist Red Stripe  AZ/Offthebus.net 

Slide 97: TechDirt Insight Community

Slide 99: offthebus.net

Slide 100: But remember: it doesn't work for everything!